blogging it real

Reading this talk ("reading this talk"? what the hell does that mean?!) of NZ somehow joining Australia (whatever the hell that would entail) has got me wondering about the size of NZ relative to other countries in the world.

This is the type of chat that's got me interested ...

Some commentators have suggested that New Zealand is not large enough to be viable and should become a state of Australia.

Helen Clark responded saying that ...

she took "umbrage" with those who questioned whether a country of four million was viable.

"We are very, very viable and I don't think most kiwis would want to lose the uniqueness that is New Zealand..."

And yours truly responds thus...
Go fuck yourself "some commentators"! New Zealand is roughly the 120th ranked country in the world in terms of population out of 227 countries.

Hell, we've even got more than the West Bank and Gaza Strip combined and look how much media attention they get!

And what's more New Zealand has more people than the smallest 47 countries in the worlds populations combined!!!!!!!!!!!

Have a look for yourself at a few countries I've selected. There's some pretty well known and thriving ones that are not much bigger than us or even smaller than us. Take Ireland for example. Should they just throw their history and future at the mercy of Britain? Because they have even less people than we do.

1 China 1,298,847,624
2 India 1,065,070,607
3 United States 293,027,571
21 United Kingdom 60,270,708
24 Korea, South 48,598,175
44 Iraq 25,374,691
48 Korea, North 22,697,553
52 Australia 19,913,144 (mostly NZers anyway)
100 Israel 6,199,008
109 Denmark 5,413,392
111 Finland 5,214,512
115 Norway 4,574,560
116 Croatia 4,496,869
119 Singapore 4,353,893
120 Bosnia and Herzegovina 4,007,608
**121 New Zealand 3,993,817**
122 Ireland 3,969,558
123 Costa Rica 3,956,507
124 Puerto Rico 3,897,960
125 Lebanon 3,777,218
127 Lithuania 3,607,899
128 Albania 3,544,808
129 Uruguay 3,399,237
137 Jamaica 2,713,130
138 United Arab Emirates 2,523,915
139 West Bank 2,311,204
141 Kuwait 2,257,549
144 Slovenia 2,011,473
152 Gaza Strip 1,324,991
157 Fiji 880,874
159 Cyprus 775,927
176 Bahamas, The 299,697
177 Iceland 293,966
178 Barbados 278,289
188 Samoa 177,714
192 Tonga 110,237
209 Greenland 56,384
214 Monaco 32,270
215 San Marino 28,503
227 Saint Pierre and Miquelon 6,995

Source: US Census Bureau